Tonight as I was flipping through TV channels trying to find something entertaining to watch while my laundry was washing, I was forced to relive something from my past. I came upon a movie on VH1 that immediately gave me flashbacks to a very dark night in my life.
The movie was "Remember The Titans", and while I can look on this movie very fondly now, I remember the night I first saw it and I remember why I walked out of the theater and chose not to continue watching it all.
You see, the movie is about a community trying to overcome racial discrimination, and they do so by integrating blacks and whites on a high school football team and go on to play a state championship. However, during their football season, their star player is in a car accident and ends up paralyzed from the waist down. The team goes on to win the game for Gary and the rest is history.
On the evening of September 15, 1999 I was 14 years old, and along with a lot of my church buddies, I was being a HUGE brat. I wanted to go to a big youth rally at a church in Fort Worth that night, but our youth pastor opted to stay at the church that night and just do a normal youth service. We were so mad at him for not letting us go that we treated him like dirt and even gave him the silent treatment all night. Then, as all good little Christian brats do, we went home like nothing we did was wrong.
Little did I know everything was wrong, and there was nothing I could have done to change that in any way.
I walked into my house and immediately noticed that something was different. There was a news cast on in the living room and my whole family was gathered around shaking their heads. From what I could understand there had been a shooting at a church, and there was a live broadcast from the street in front of it telling us moment by moment what was going on. Many were assumed wounded or dead inside, but no one could go in because the police suspected that there were bombs inside as well. Then the big shocker came, this was not just a church service, this was a YOUTH service. Kids my age, being shot as they sat in church. That spun my head in circles. I remember I turned around and asked my mom, "It was a youth group?"
Just then there was a knock on my door. I went to answer it and found my friend and neighbor in a crying heap on my front porch. I went outside to see what was the matter and all she could say was, "Justin has been shot!" It took me a moment to grasp what she had said, but eventually I started to piece it all together. This was not just some tragedy at a church or some youth group shooting. This was a shooting of people I knew, at the event my friends and I so insisted on attending. As the night went on, friends sat on my front porch and waited for reports. Justin had been shot in the back and was temporarily paralyzed from what we knew, and we would get the call later that Joey (a freshman at our school) had died from a wound to the head. We held each other and cried all night. When I think about it, I can still feel the numbness from that night and I doubt I will ever live through something like that again.
In the days that followed, we showed school pride like never before, although it was hard as we were stalked at every turn by media and cameras. They had questions we didn't have answers to and we didn't know what to do. I was a freshman in high school... 14 years old, and an adult shoves a microphone in my face and asks me about what is going on. Something is so wrong with that picture. We were called the second Columbine and the students from Colorado even came down and counseled with us. When I look back on it, it feels like a snapshot out of a history book.
What does all this have to do with Remember The Titans? Justin was our star football player, and as it turns out, he is still paralyzed to this day. The shooting happened on a Wednesday night, and we had a football game scheduled for that Friday night against our biggest rivals. Our school decided to go ahead and play the game, even though our spirits were low and the odds were against us, being that we NEVER won against our rivals from Aledo. Our motto for that night was "Play it for Justin, Win it for Joey." And that we did. A stunning 42-3 victory, and I still wonder if the other team felt sorry for us.
Needless to say, as a teenager, this happening changed the hearts and lives of a generation in my town. I think it is probably the reason I am so passionate about ministering to teenagers today. I know the value of one life in a way that not a lot of people can understand.
Its amazing how God, even though He doesn't cause it, can bring good from tragedy and use it to set your life on a path chasing after what He has called you to do. After our bitter sweet football game that night, we had what we liked to call a "Fifth Quarter". Normally this meant an extra time for students to hang out. Sometimes we would go to a movie or the skating rink, but on that night we gathered on the football field and prayed with and received counsel from the students of Columbine High School. I stood on that football field as a very broken soul and talked to a nice girl named Crystal and and guy named Tom. They didn't really know what to say to us, but they knew exactly how to be there for us and support us, and I have always wanted to thank them for doing that.
My involvement with youth recently led me to be involved in a large event with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in South Fort Worth. At that meeting, on a football field, at a high school, I met back up (almost ten years later) with Crystal Woodman Miller, the Columbine student who has counseled with my friends and I at that Fifth Quarter that sad night. We talked about the old times, and how it is funny how when God brings us together it always seems to be on a high school football field. Crystal has also taken to ministry and is doing quite well. We stay in contact to this day.
I think today I am in a good place where I can watch Remember The Titans and cry with understanding, and then move on and know that no matter how bad my day has been, I have a job to do. God has directed my life in very obvious ways, keeping me out of harms way and leading me on the path He has for me. I know that I can go out there and make a difference in the life of a teen who is going through a tragedy, and I know thats what I was created to do. Its not always easy, but it is who I am. THAT will never change.
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